Related Articles

He was arrested at his barracks in Plymouth in March. At an earlier hearing, Westminster magistrates’ court heard he allegedly offered military information to a foreign embassy.

An application for bail – heard in chambers at the Old Bailey on Monday – was refused by the judge, Mr Justice Saunders. He also granted anonymity to potential security industry witnesses due to give evidence.

Devenney, of Strabane, Co Tyrone, Northern Ireland, was due to enter a plea to two breaches of the Act, but the case was adjourned for legal reasons.

Appearing via videolink from Wandsworth prison, in southwest London, and dressed in a green shirt and blue striped sweater, he spoke only to confirm his name.

He will return to court on a date to be fixed in early October to enter a plea. A provisional trial date has been set for November 13.

It will be decided during the October which parts of the evidence will need to be heard in secret.

The petty officer's legal team are currently in the process of consulting security experts. They were given until July 20 to submit their defence case to the court.

He is being represented by Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, a leading barrister and former MP who defended Paul Burrell, who was the butler of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Devenney, who served at HMS Drake in Plymouth, Devon, faces two charges under 1911 Official Secrets Act.

They are collecting information for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state, collecting any secret official code word or password or sketch, plan, material article or note, or other document or information, namely cryptographic material that was calculated to be or might be, or was intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy.

The second charge relates to communicating information to another person for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state, communicating to another person information that was calculated to be or might be or was intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy.

In 2008, in an unrelated case, Corporal Daniel James, an Army translator who worked for the head of Nato forces in Afghanistan, was found guilty of breaching the Official Secrets Act.

Cpl James, 45, an Iranian by birth, sent coded emails to about British troop movements to the Iranian military attaché in Kabul.

In 2010, MI6 employee Daniel Houghton, was also convicted and jailed for breaching the act.

The IT graduate, 25, helped develop a method of intercepting emails in the secret service, but tried to sell official secrets for £2 million to agents from the Netherlands.

In 1997, former MI6 officer Richard Tomlinson was jailed for violating the Official Secrets Act by giving a synopsis of a proposed book to a publisher.

He pleaded guilty to the breach, after apparently giving details of his career in the Secret Intelligence Service, but the book was later published.

In 1983, Foreign and Commonwealth Officer Sarah Tisdall was imprisoned for leaking government documents to the Guardian newspaper.